Venice Biennale calling

I've been pining to travel to Venice for the Biennale for years and since the 54th Venice Biennale started June 4, I've been imagining myself strolling along the canals like I did when I was there as a teenager in the 80s.

For over a century, the Biennale has been a premier art event.  Apparently, it  has also grown into a celebrity magnet, like an Oscars party for the Arts,  which could be an annoying distraction, but the push to assemble large, current installations by representative artists of many countries still appeals to me.  I expect that stepping from building to building, each curated by country, in such a decadent, labyrinth of a city would be a rich and powerful art experience. Owen Sheers confirms this in his review.      


Swiss-born, Bice Curiger, curated 83 artists and groups into this year's event titled ILLUMinations. With 89 pavilions, it is touted as the largest and most inclusive Biennale to date.

"I am particularly interested in the eagerness of many contemporary artists to establish an intense dialogue with the viewer, and to challenge the conventions through which contemporary art is viewed."  Bice Curiger, Universes in Universe

For what reads to me like an even-handed review of this year's Venice Biennale that at least descriptively mentions some lower-profile works, I recommend Roberta Smith's two page synopsis in The New York Times.  Adrian Searle of The Guardian leads a melodramatic video tour of some high profile installations of an ATM pipe organ, a tank powered treadmill plus more by  Mike Nelson, Maurizio Cattelan, Urs Fischer, Thomas Hirschhorn and others, which is fun to see.  Click here to see it.

And be sure to watch this interview with Chrsitian Marclay, winner of the Golden Lion for his work, "The Clock." (Video from The Bienniale Channel's YouTube site.)

Haroon Mirza won the Silver Lion, an award for a promising young artist, for the way his work "immediately engages the viewer with his refreshing views on weakness and power."

Art Info also posted a handy guide by country. (Click this line of text to go to it.)  Or follow the Universes in Universe links to see theirs.

With a glimpse through images and video from the web, many of this year's selections sound interactive and engaging and probably worth elbowing your way past Leonardo DiCaprio or Courtney Love, if one  must.  The Venice Biennale runs till November 27.  

Have you ever been to a Biennale in Venice? 

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Bibliography (a.k.a. click linked text below to see and read more):
Universes in Universe
La Bienale
The Guardian
The New York Times 

artdaily.org

Art Info
The Bienniale Channel website